Memphis has a rich musical heritage and a majestic location on a bluff overlooking the mighty Mississippi.
Not to seem irreverent, but that and about $4 will buy you a nice cup of coffee.
As The Commercial Appeal's Tom Charlier reports in today's Viewpoint cover story, the city leaks talent and wealth like a punctured tire leaks air.
Staggering numbers of high-wage earners are steadily leaving -- not just Memphis, but the entire eight-county Memphis metropolitan area, which suffered net income losses exceeding $398 million during the 10-year span ending in 2007.
This has obvious ramifications for the economy and the quality of life. The people moving out are assets to the community. They're good friends, good neighbors, good workers.
The numbers show that Memphis is not one of those places that, as they're described in the current issue of Urban Land magazine, "become beehives of commerce, culture, and opportunity -- vibrant places that fire imaginations and have gravitational pull (where people) feel content and happy: they believe they could never live anywhere else."
A few examples, for contrast: "Milan is representative of cutting-edge design, Chicago celebrates architecture. New York City never rests as a center for finance, art, theater, food, and fashion. Nashville is synonymous with music."
Ouch. Nashville, a place where the public school system is in worse shape than ours, has a greater sense of place? A more compelling narrative?
As Charlier reports, Nashville is a destination city for talent grown in Memphis. We lost $23.4 million in net personal income to the city at the eastern end of Music Highway between 2006 and 2007.
That's the reality that community leaders such as Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton wake up to every morning. It's a driving force behind current efforts to buff up the community's economic development incentives, create a tuition-free community college system, drive down the crime rate, build sustainability, create more green space, support the arts and in other ways enhance the quality of life.
Local government has aggressively pursued public policies that encourage minority development, Wharton points out. What it needs now, he says, is an affirmative action program to keep people of talent from departing.
Wharton's dreams are large in this respect. He talks about visiting Berlin, where his taxi driver attended a mandatory class to learn more about the city's history. He wonders if establishing an office of cultural affairs like New York City's would pay for itself many times over.
This is a conversation that Memphis needs to have. The city has a certain allure. In fact, there are people who feel such a strong gravitational pull that they could not imagine living anywhere else. But there are too many whose struggle with the magnetic pull of Atlanta or Dallas-Fort Worth is harder to overcome.
These may be difficult issues to focus on during an economic crisis. But ideas are sorely needed to reverse the exodus of capital, the intellectual kind as well as the stuff that jingles in the cash register.
